Femininity In Ken Kesey's Nurse Ratched

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Recommended: 20th century gender roles in literature

By portraying Nurse Ratched as an asexual, power yielding figure who opposed the traditional notions of femininity, Kesey suggested that her repressed femininity was the only reason her matriarchal reign persisted in the Ward. Furthermore, Nurse Ratched’s portrayal is often linked to machines or animals to further emphasize her disconnect from the traditional female role and integration of a more masculine essence into her persona. The institutionalized patients regard her with any amount of fear only due to her inhuman behavior and almost masculine physical attributes, “...working with mechanical precision...standing...as big as a truck…,” which mechanizes and strips her of any human warmth a supposed maternal figure should portray according

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